Interesting. I replied on the Economist, but I want to copy here for comments from our members and onlookers experience. You guests do know you can jump in here too, don't you?

I find Spanish speakers in Louisiana almost never use usted, but always the informal tu. I might assume that since the second, informal person disappeared in English, then usted might triumph in Spanish. Most Spanish writing I read today is either news or informal on Twitter, so I don't have a lot to compare. It may be only local.

Well, yes, but there lately have been only about a dozen or so commenters, and I'm happy when a new voice is heard from. I want to encourage those members who mostly lurk to pitch in from time to time.

Perry Lassiter wrote:Well, yes, but there lately have been only about a dozen or so commenters, and I'm happy when a new voice is heard from. I want to encourage those members who mostly lurk to pitch in from time to time.

Well, more power to you if you can find them and drag them in. I agree, I'd love to see more, but I don't know how to bait the hook. Perhaps the return of a prodigal, gailr, might encourage others. We can only hope.

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

In Luke, the prodigal son wasted his substance in riotous living. (He went to New Orleans at Mardi Gras.) Possibly his prodigality connected in folks's minds with wastrel spending. The influence of the well known story itself lends the meaning of a lost soul, runaway, black sheep, etc. It may not be best to define the word and then impose it on the parable that shaped it.